Eclipse
by Business of Misery
Summary: If Alice wanted him to take her to the moon, James Nicholls was more than willing to make sure she would make it there. A short story on love before pain, passion before suffering, and beauty before glory. With the world at war, Alice and James find themselves in termoil. Captain Nicholls/OC collection of one-shots.
1. Crator

_"To die for lack of love is horrible. The asphyxia of the soul." -Les Miserables, Victor Hugo._

* * *

Too many metaphors existed in the world for either of them to think of anything clever or creative. They weren't witty or passionate about talking about how beautiful the world was when, in reality, it was a desolate wasteland. Chaos rained down on the faces of men and women and children covered in ash and ran through the veins of the monsters who called themselves soldiers. They, like everyone else with dark circles under their eyes, liked to believe that somewhere in the dystopian ruins of blood and gunpowder, a flower grew through the cracks and sprouted new life with a kiss from the sun.

The world did not favor too kindly, and their pretending could only reach so far before the clouds pushed them back to reality and forced them to cling to each other's bodies for refuge. James was not the kind of man who openly wept, though there was a certain fear that only Alice could find, hidden somewhere between his love and insecurity.

"We could run away, you know." she had told him. He'd smiled at her and kissed her lips, the space between them fading into nothing when his hands found the golden tendrils of her hair and swept her off her feet and taken her straight to her bed. She had said nothing since, knowing full well that was his way of telling her that their dreams were a faint, forgotten memory of something that might never be. They didn't know then, in a mess of silk and skin, that this dream had died with the flame of Alice's bedside candle. The moonlight drifted in the window, an observant reminder that the two were not- and never would be- truly alone. The world carried on hopelessly beyond the four walls and the countryside.

A lock of Alice's hair curled between James's fingertips, embedding fragments of her DNA onto his prints forever. He would never forget the feeling of each tiny strand kissing his skin with a softness only her lips could rival or the penetrating gaze of her dark eyes as she watched him toy with her. She leaned across the bed, planting her lips firmly on his bare shoulder, her nose buried in the pocket where his arm came to connect with his torso. Her palms found his chest, the warmth radiating from his beating heart as it longed for her touch, jealous of the tanned hide of it's vessel. James found that no matter how far away she was, the organ was always thundering for her. The closer she was, the more he thought he might die from the sheer excitement of it.

"We could go all the way to the moon." Her nose wrinkled even as she said it, laughter dancing across the bridge and vanishing into her freckles. James kissed her temple, allowing his lips to linger on her skin for as long as he could. If it were up to him, he never would have forced them away. But the smile on her face was more than enough reason to look down at her. It didn't matter that the sheet that covered her was thin and translucent. Given the time of day, he could have found the curves around her breasts and hips, places his hands had already been but that seemed so new to him every time they had been discovered. He might have seen the way she shook as she curled her body towards his. This was not the shiver of anticipation or longing, and the butterflies in her stomach did not flutter with such urgency, but instead the tension throughout her body was the fear laced through each cold bump on the surface of her skin.

"I would take you there." James promised, blinking slowly against the pale light on Alice's face. His lashes brushed against her skin and he felt her hands slide over the muscles in his chest, wrapping around him in a tight embrace. Her face buried into him and he knew what was coming even before he felt the touch of her salty tears on his cold flesh. One hand gripped the back of her head and held her there, the fingers ensnaring in the coils of hair there. The other found her waist, his heart jumping at the contact with the delicate, tender flesh as he held her against him. His throat closed up and his muzzle disappeared into her hair. James took those moments to memorize Alice, burning the details into his memory: the way her hair smelled like sunflowers in the wind; the bitter slap of her tears, rubbing furiously with great friction against him; and the slick, sublime skin that cocooned the muscles and bone that made her who she was.

* * *

Alice would not beg James to stay. It was inevitable that, if he did not leave of his own free will, he would be wrenched from her arms in the dead of night without so much as a proper farewell. It was best to do it this way- walking into the firing line with his head held high and eyes sparkling with what little life the world would hand him.

She was already going through the stages of grief. When he had first mentioned it to her, she had flat out pretended that she had not heard his words or changed the subject. She felt that if they pretended the world was turning slowly or could simply stop, they would get off of it and make their own life somewhere else.

Days had turned into weeks before he finally caught her and they had a proper talk. The wind was blowing that day, sweeping her hair into circles around her neck and waving the sheets like giant flags as she pinned them up to dry. Her hands were frozen in the bucket of water at her feet as she scrubbed at the cloths in the large tin. James found her, hands at his hips and watching in silence for a long moment.

"Alice," her name flowed from his lips like a waterfall and she squinted up at him through the sun, the light bouncing off her teeth and back into his face. He crossed through the tall grass and emerged at her side, receiving a tender kiss to the cheek. "I think we ought to have that talk."

As predicted, she pretended not to notice, but he refused to back off. He waited in silence as she finished the article in her hands, stringing it up with clothes pins before crossing his path, intending to continue about her business. But his hand took her forearm and she wretched it from his grip, spinning to face him with heat on her cheeks.

"You listen here, mister Nicholls," her voice shook with every syllable and James could feel his stomach sink when the sparkle in her eye died. "I don't want to hear anything you've got to say about it, and don't you try making me feel bad."

"What am I supposed to do?" James sighed, running one of his hands through his golden hair. She had sat down, but he closed in on her like a hound and she glared up at him. "If I don't go now, I'll get drafted in. You know I will."

That was the start of it. They had argued for nearly an hour, standing in the midst of a harsh wind. It had ended with Alice's face coated with fresh tears, but James had finally convinced her it was the right thing to do. She had poured the bucket of water on him, slapped him on the face and stalked off into the house, but even as he watched her disappear and leave him standing alone, he knew she would forgive him before supper. And not ten minutes later, she had come out with a towel and told him to get inside before he caught a cold. She did not look him in the eye, but that night had ended with his arms around her waist and her legs tangled with his as though nothing had changed.

She had tried for weeks to convince him that it was the wrong idea. She had pleaded him that his decision would be wrong, that he had too much at stake to walk away and leave her behind. There had been guilt trips, many words of exchanging that had been said with an empty heart (_I hate you, you selfish bastard!)_ but they had always ended with apologies and tears.

In this time, Alice had felt a white hot sting in her core that felt akin to betrayal and had suffered it with his arms around her and secret messages of love passed when they were not close enough to share the same breathing space. It was alright, she supposed. One could never argue being in the arms of their beloved.

* * *

"I love you." her voice was a whisper to be lost in a wild storm, but James felt it press against his throat as her head turned toward him. She was fresh out of tears and her limb around his torso had relaxed. The weight on her shoulders was pressing down and suffocating her, but she dare not fight it. Instead, she fought the will to keep her eyes open, if only to look upon her love for just a second longer. He caught her sore, red eyes watching him as a small distance erupted between them. His thumb ran over her cheek and down to her lips, which he promptly took in his own for a much shorter time than he would have liked.

"And I love you." His words were crisp and clung to Alice's ear like a pearl. The slightest of smiles graced her lips at his words and she kissed him again. Neither of them noticed how long the kiss had gone for before he was hovering over her again.

They did not count how many times their name crawled up the throat and escaped the lips of the other, or how long it took before her fingers curled around the sheets under her body, or how many times their eyes found each others in that one straining moment of weakness. Even after they had caught their breaths and Alice's breathing had fallen into a slow, steady rhythm that matched James's blinking eyes, he did not count the stars beyond the window, or sheep in the back of his head or the tiny patterns on the ceiling. It didn't matter, and he doubted it ever would.

James looked down at the woman in his arms, choosing instead to count the things that _did _matter. He counted the strands of hair until he lost them in the sea of blonde. He counted the lashes on her eye until they blended into a line of blackened soldier and the moonlight was no longer sufficient to count the freckles on her nose. He had memorized those things, too. Just as he had memorized the way she wrote his name, how she laced her corsets up her back, or how much sugar she liked in her tea.

The world was a desolate wasteland and James knew it. If there was anything in the world he was sure of, it was that. It was full of monsters in the cupboards and children dying in the streets. He didn't know what he would see when they sent him away, but he had no doubts that they would be images of suffering and fear that he had never dreamed of in all his life. You couldn't lace up a body bag or put sugar in turpentine. He would see his name written on letters with tear stains drooping over the curves of the 'J,' and he was certain that every time he saw a lock of blonde hair he would wonder if it smelled like her.

James closed his eyes, pushing aside the images of fire and hooves thundering on the ground. It was coming, that was his future. But so was she, he reminded himself. Someday he would come home and she would wrap him in sheets and kiss him goodnight and be his wife. Until then, all that mattered was that he could find a place for her in the war that would be his own. She would appear in the valleys of darkness, across the fields of rice and in the eyes of the men he would walk beside. Alice would be found in his dreams and in his bed, her arms clinging to him and her voice asking him to take her to the moon.

And someday, he would build her a rocket ship.


	2. Promise

It began with dreams. A lucid feeling where he wasn't quite sure what was real and what was not. The ash in his mouth was dry, and he would cough and swallow it until his lungs could hold no air. The only thing he could see beyond the thick smoke were the massive silhouettes of tanks and the burning fire in faraway fields. He knew they were dreams because a silence fell over the world, like it had simply stopped turning. No men fell to the ground with wide eyes and soulless gaps between their lips, no triggers were squeezed between the beats of a heart. The only sound that met his ear was the soft voice, calling his name through the mist.

"_James."_ It was distant, but he would run in whatever direction it floated to him from. His legs pounded against the dead land below him as he ran, trying to see her through the dense fog. No matter how hard he strained to hear her calling out to him, James never reached her. He would wake up in a cold sweat and his eyes would come back into focus. He would find himself inside a canvas tent in an uncomfortable cot and he would lay back and remind himself that she was farther from his reach than the echo of a voice could even stretch, sitting on porch swings and writing him darling letters. He never told her about the dreams.

Only once did James ever reach Alice in the depths of the chaos. He could see her outline standing against the blue-grey horizon, submerged in smoke and splintered trees. The smile that befell his face was far beyond any pain that had been done against James's heart. His hand reached out, passing through the fog and his fingertips skimmed her cheek.

He drew back as her image came forth. James felt his throat tighten, her eyes boring into him. Her skin was coated with ash and flaking, the way the bodies had done in the fields as the feet stepped on mines. The eyes were hollow and lifeless, her hair dingy and smelled of cigars. She stood close to him and he felt terror grip him. He was not afraid, however, of the image that stood before him, but instead of himself- his repulsion to her in this state made him ill. Alice's hands touched the dark jacket around his torso, leaving behind blackened streaks. Her cracked lips parted, revealing the serpentine tongue.

"_Wake up, James."_

It was all he could do to shove his palms into his eyes and clench his teeth when his eyes opened and he found the dream dissipating into the lost fragments of his mind. Her eyes remained the longest, peering into the darkness that had taken home in his soul. He lit the lantern at his bedside and washed his face in a bucket of water, trying to remember that she was _safe._

The dreams had stopped, then. There were new terrors- pain ripping through his chest, the shouting of innocent men and the ever present stench of sulfur. New nightmares for an unchanged fear that had settled across all of Europe and dragging him under slowly, James was sure his sanity was fading faster than the war could have coped with. When Alice stopped appearing in these night terrors, he had, at first, considered himself lucky. Weeks passed and he had stopped wondering what had come of his love. They still wrote, and as predicted, her tears stained some of the frail pages. He knew she was suffering, but there was little he could do.

* * *

Three weeks after sending Alice a letter, he still had not heard from her again. He had heard the stories of the men who's girlfriends and wives would abandon them for someone fresh and new, but he had never guessed such a fate to befall on him. James was sure, more than anything, that Alice still loved him with all of her heart and would wait 'til the end of the earth for his return.

Upon realizing that he may never hear from her again, the hallucinations began. She would appear at his bedside when he woke with sweat on his forehead and fire in his lungs, her hand on his back and lips at his throat, soothing him with whispers and butterfly kisses. He knew it was not real, yet he could never tell the twisted fantasy to go away. After some time, she began to appear at the table, taking the place of one of the green-clad men, her laughter blending into theirs and eyes outshining the sun. He would try not to draw attention as he snuck an extra glance in the direction, but by the time he did, she was gone and the man who sat there would look at him rather strangely.

He saw her in Jamie more than once and his friend had noticed the distant look in his eye. As soon as the gloved hand landed on James's shoulder, she was gone and the blue, piercing eyes of his best friend would replace her.

Sometimes she would speak. He couldn't answer her if they weren't alone, but he did enjoy hearing her voice in his head. James was rather sure he was going crazy, but it didn't matter because she understood. Alice knew she was not real, and that made it all the easier and more painful for her to walk beside him. She would rest her hand on his shoulder, making silly jokes or telling him how much she loved him and not to worry, that she was humming while she did the dishes or hung the laundry up to dry, or peeling the skin from potatoes and dropping them into the bucket, watching the back porch and hoping she would see him coming. It did little to think that he had left her behind, but anything he told himself she might be doing was better than the option that she was beside him. Though he missed her, war was hardly a place for a lady, much less being dropped into a place she might be killed.

He tried not to think of that, just the way he tried not to think of a faceless stranger in her bed, hands deep in her honey hair and placing kisses where _his _lips belonged. The thoughts were sewn to the back of his mind, so they were never quite gone, but they were covered with scenarios he liked to imagine. James wondered what she would say when he came back home. Would she run to him, holding up her skirt so that she didn't trip, and wrap her arms around him? Would she cry, kiss his face and scream with joy, would she faint?

* * *

The French sky was bright that day. James found himself in rather good company, shoulders finally relaxed if only for a moment. He carried himself proudly under the tents, eyeing the map that had been lay out before them. The Indian man spoke quickly, but not a word was missed to James. Jamie stood on the other side of the man, looking down at the canvas print with his brows furrowed.

"Numbers?" He asked, squinting through the magnifying glass. The sun burst through it and spilled across the paint.

"About six-hundred, infantry." He was answered. He glanced up at Jamie, who exchanged an unsure glance with him.

"That's twice our size." James could feel the pleading look in his own eye, begging his friend to look deeper into the iris. Jamie squeezed the cap against his side and the disagreement between them was clear.

Even after they had stepped into the sunlight, James felt the coil in his stomach begin to tighten. The men and their horses had begun to move already, but James felt his feet grow heavy as he walked between Jamie and the figment of Alice at his side.

"James, you can't do this." She pleaded with him, her hands wrapping gingerly around his bicep. "Something isn't right."

"I cannot disobey orders," He told her. Of course, the words had not been spoken, but he heard them quite clearly in his head. She did not release him as she turned to walk in front of him. He kept moving, the lead in his shoes not enough to stop his movements. She allowed him to walk through her, but she kept her stride next to him.

"Please, tell them. This is wrong, something is terribly wrong." Her voice had become an echo as he tried, desperately, for the first time in his life, to shut her out. He knew that her words were the feelings of his heart, that she was the emotional turmoil inside him. But he had to put his brain first, and his brain told him to follow commands. It wasn't as though Jamie were to be persuaded and it wasn't his choice to make. He had already said what he could say to the other man, what more was there he could do?

"If it must be done, let's do it quickly." James sighed, slowing to a stop to speak to Charlie. Charlie appeared as apprehensive as he did, though Alice kept her mouth shut as the two men spoke.

James's eyes flickered to Alice's soft face and stepped up to the horse he had come to know was named Joey. He spoke to the horse, aware of her watchful eyes. He pat the horse's neck, the unease crawling further and further up his spine and to the base of his neck, raising the hairs there. Finally, he mounted the horse with Alice standing at his side.

"I beg you, James, is there nothing that can be done?" She was loud now, thundering on his subconscious plane. He reached out a hand, a gesture that went unnoticed to the many men around him as they began to swarm the area around them. She took it, though there was no flesh to be felt, and mounted the horse with her arms around his waist. He felt nothing- there was no warmth or her breath on the back of his neck. A stab of pain shot through James's heart as he pondered this fact.

Jamie spoke to the vast expanse of men, but James could only hear the beating of his own heart as the men shouted and they rode toward the sun.

"James," Alice's voice whispered into his ear as he drew the sword from his side, trying not to drown in the grass ocean around them. Their swords pointed forward and they began to march, the shifting of the saddle under James rocking him gently. "I love you."

The horses were moving faster now, the world around them passing by with the waving wheat and overhead sky blurring together. "I love you." He said it out loud, though he doubted he were to be heard. The sound of hooves was overwhelming in his ears, but he could hear Alice clearly as she breathed into his ear.

"Promise me you'll come home." They jumped over tents and paraded across the German's camp, his sword slicing through any man who came in his way. Joey lead him through, one man's throat after another tasting the edge of his weapon. "Promise we'll get married."

He saw the gun first. After that was the man behind it, and their eyes locked for just a moment. "Promise me you'll take me to the moon."

He heard the shrill sound of the bullets tearing through the air, the shells jumping through the smoke and dust. Others fell around him first, and then inexplicable pain tore through his body, splitting open his heart and, for the first time since the nightmares began, tears to his eyes. Alice was hovering over him with her hands on his face, blood- his blood- staining the front of her dress. Her hair curled around his face and her lips pressed to his forehead. He tried to shake his head, a twinge of a last smile on his lips. She was crying, too, now.

"_I can't."_


	3. Shadows

_We're the lucky ones, you and me. Lucky since the day I met you._

* * *

His hands were touching her bare back. They were calloused hands, rough from hard work and determination that he brought him to her in the first place,tickling the surface of her spine as they dragged up and down the bone. They dipped between each vertebrae, counting silently. Her back was curved away from him and other than the fragile touch, their bodies were distance. He was not touching the curves of her sides or tangling in the long locks of hair that spilled across the pillow beneath her head. The silk sheets were pulled to her waist like a cloud and she could hear his breathing from behind her, even with the vast ocean of bed between them.

Alice's eyes remained closed, but she could see everything as though in vivid dream. The piercing eyes sticking needles into her back, sewing patterns into her skin with the tip of his finger. She kept her breathing even, not daring to allow him to know that she was awake. She liked it better that way. He would stop touching her soon, as he always had. In the darkness of night, he would remove himself from James's side of the bed, cross the room, pull on his clothing and take leave. She would roll over then, as the shadow of a man vanished beyond the closed door, and lay her hand in the spot. It would still be warm and Alice would be free to believe that James had just ghosted her sheets.

She could not remember his face. No matter how hard she tried to remember what color the stranger's eyes were or what his name might have been, she saw only James. His beautiful eyes, the stunning smile she had come to love. They were stained into her memory and even the comfort of another man could not help her.

And so, as predicted, he lifted himself from Alice's bed and soon he was gone, just like James. The only difference, she knew, was that she could see James's shadow on the wall. She could feel his breath at the back of her neck and taste his name on her lips. Even though he was gone, James still lulled her to sleep every night.

Since his death, Alice had not been the same. Growing up, she had always wondered: if you gave someone your heart and they died, would they take it with them? The answer had been yes, of course they did. It was a permanent trade and she would remain with a hole in the center of her chest where James's hand used to caress the gentle flesh.

She rolled over to face the now empty place on the bed, staring at the sunken place where the sheets had collected around a body. It wasn't the right shape, she decided. James was much taller than this shadow-man, leaner in the torso and would have laid much closer to her. And, as an afterthought, his hands were not so rough. Yes, they had the touch of a hard worker, but they had been so tender. The intruder, the man who attempted to fill that gap in Alice's chest, touched her with only his fingertips. James would have pressed his palm to her. She felt the spot next to her as it began to grow cold and tore herself away from it, sitting up in the bed.

The moon spilled light through the curtains across the room and her stomach tightened as she padded through the light, her own shadow casting long against the wall. A choked sob came from her throat and she pushed it back, opening the wardrobe. The doors blocked some of the light from her dull eyes, but it was not enough. As she searched through the wardrobe, her hands lingered on the shirts that had belonged to James. They were not particularly magnificent, as neither of their families had been well off, but as her hands dragged across the torso of his favorite button up- one of the few nice articles he had- Alice was sure it was the most spectacular piece of clothing in all of creation.

Anger flared through Alice's heart as she spotted the tawny wrapped pile of envelopes. She took them into her shaking hands and put her back to the wardrobe, making her way back to the bed. She unwrapped them gingerly, allowing them to splay out on the sheets around her. Alice simply stared at them for a long time, feeling as though she were surrounded by tiny pieces of James and his life after her. She wondered if she would ever forgive him, knowing deep in her heart that she never would. He had done nothing wrong, but there was no one else she could blame for the torment that housed her soul. Slowly, she reached out and took the nearest envelope into her hands. It was yellowing with age, the stamp long since faded. It was the first one he had sent her, detailing his arrival and his accounts of purchasing a horse. He was fond of it, he'd told her. A tiny smile danced on Alice's lips as she read the letter, tears collecting at the corners of her eyes. No matter how angry she was at James, how much she wanted to hate him and accept that he was gone just, if nothing else, so the pain would go away, she could not stop seeing him sitting at a desk and scrawling on a parchment as he thought of her. A sketch of the horse was detailed at the bottom of the page and she ran her fingers over the lines.

Alice put the letter back in it's skin and set it on the table beside her bed, eyes trailing over the other letters. She picked up the next memory, swallowing with hope as she read it, too. It was equally as pleasant and she could see the love in the curves of her name at the top of the page. It stung, to know that he had written her name so many times. He'd set aside time, despite how busy she knew he must have been, had probably crumbled up many pages and crossed through a hundred words until he found the right ones, all just for her. A tear escaped her eye as she scanned the pages of each and every letter, taking her time as though ingraining it into her memory, like it was the last time she would ever see the words.

When the final letter was left on the bed, at the foot and bathed in moonlight, Alice felt the air in the room thicken like blood. She cringed as her skin crawled with goosebumps and leaned forward, taking the piece between her index finger and thumb, pulling it towards her with great care. The letter was the last one she had ever gotten from him, sent to her three weeks before his death. She bit her lower lip as she slid her finger through the top and it opened for her, allowing her to see the guts it held inside. Her smiles had long since gone and she felt another tear drip from her chin. Her hands quaked as she removed the letter and began to unfold it with great care.

_My lovely Alice,_

A choked sob escaped her lips and her hand flew to cover her mouth as a tear plopped onto the page with a silent splatter. She willed herself to read the letter, closing her eyes just long enough to push the salty liquid behind them.

_I miss you more and more with each passing day. I will myself to stay strong until the day that I am to come home to you. I have begun to have terrible nightmares and I wake to find you are not beside me. It pains my heart, but I know you are safe and waiting for me to return. And when I do, I'll make good on my promise to take you to the moon-_

Alice could not stop herself from looking up, then, finding the pale light still playing gently across the floor and end of her bed. She wanted nothing more than to close the curtain, or perhaps even obliterate the moon herself. Each time she saw it beyond her frame, she remembered James's kiss at the nape of her neck and she hated the sphere with all her might. Her breath hitched and she looked back down at the page.

_-and will marry you. You are the strength that keeps me sane and for that I will always be in your debt. Aside from this plaguing dreams, I am doing well here. We will be leaving for France rather soon, I'm afraid. I don't know what to expect there, but I will be with Jamie and many men I have placed my trust in-_

Alice let out a dry laugh here, knowing fully well the disastrous irony laced in each curl of his words. The men he had trusted, had placed his life in their hands, had stabbed him in the back. Or rather, shot him from his horse. Alice felt her stomach churn and blood leaked from her lip as she crushed her teeth further into it, but it went unnoticed. Her hand tightened on the page but she was careful not to crush it in her hands. Taking a deep breath, she read on.

_There is nothing to worry about and I'm sure I will be home before too much longer. When we have made it to France, I will draw you a thousand pictures. I've heard it is a very beautiful place. Maybe someday I can take you there, when the world is a kinder place to live._

Alice felt the blood drain from her face. The world would never be, she knew, a kinder place. It was cold and distant, but this had nothing to do with the war. Even if it ended and all countries were at peace, the white flag hung on each and every door in Germany... Even if the sun filled every crevice of the earth and left no shadow, Alice knew one place would always remain dark. James was gone, and with it, the light that filled her soul. She put the letter back, avoiding the name scrawled at the bottom of the page along with a declaration of love. The letter found its way next to her bed with the others, where she left them as she pulled the sheets up over her head. She sobbed, then, allowing her face to bury into the pillow under her head.

The place beside Alice was a frozen wasteland now, untouched by another skin. The man who had removed himself would return in some days or weeks, but she knew he would always leave just as easily as he had come. Eventually, Alice would get used to it. She would find that being left behind had by a stranger was much easier than never getting to tell James goodbye, or never seeing him put into the ground where he belonged, next to other heroes or under a tree where she might someday be placed next to him. The stranger was just a reminder of what she had already lost and what she would continue to lose each and every day she was without James.

She would not remember how he'd ended up at her side. The man's face was foggy in her vision, as was most of her moments since learning of James's death. The days blurred into each other, time stringing along as a single moment that had drawn itself across the stars of time. Alice had a vague memory of collapsing on the kitchen floor, hands clawing desperately at the floor as her body racked with loud sobs and she had not cared that the deliverer of such terrible news was standing, awkwardly watching her, in the doorway.

After that moment, there had been many infinitesimal flickers of memories where she needed James the most. One such day, Alice had dropped a ceramic plate at her feet and cut open her fingertips picking up the pieces and she could think only of James kissing the tiny cuts with care; she could see him in every corner, watching her with those beautiful eyes and the set jaw that would never open for her again.

The stranger appeared, woven between these sob wrenching memories. She could not remember how they met, but there was a lightly sun-kissed memory of herself, crying on the front porch with her legs curled beneath her and her palms pressed against her face. The stranger had curled himself around her like a security blanket and she allowed him to do so, imagining, and really feeling for the first time in weeks, that James was there, his hands squeezing her shoulders and nose buried in her hair. Alice had let the stranger fill in James's place-

He was not a replacement. No one could ever replace James, of that Alice was sure. She did not love this strange man. His eyes were not the right color and his voice was not the right pitch. She did not smile when his hand fell into hers as they walked through the square. She did not feel a fluttering kick in her heart when he appeared in the fields, pulling at crops while she hung up a white flag of sheets. There was nothing about this stranger that reminded her of James, but perhaps that was why she kept him around like she did. He was comfort, dotting her shoulders with tender kisses in the darkness of night with only the moon to keep them company, but she could not look him in the face.

As the stranger's face continued to grow blurry in her mind, Alice rubbed the tears from her face until she thought she might be raw. The silence was dreadfully thick and, like every night before, Alice was sure she might drown in it. Deep down, she was hoping that when, if, she fell asleep, she might suffocate with the feather pillow pressed to her lips; or, perhaps, she might purge her heart onto the floor beside her. She would watch it beat mercilessly against the floor with dead eyes and would finally be free of the infernal thing.

James would not want that of her. Alice knew all too well. Had he been able, he would have wrapped his arms around her neck and buried her face in his chest. That, she thought fondly, would have been a beautiful way to die. But he would not have let her become such a ruin, a ghost of what she had once been. It was funny, almost, that they were now nothing but ghosts, yet the two of them were forced apart by the hands of fate. Alice felt a dry sob rise through her chest, but there were no more tears to fuel the fire in her lungs and she was sure only dust would escape her lips. Her hands clung desperately to the sheets below her, laying on her stomach so that her back was to the moon, allowing the darkness to swallow the light in her eyes. She would suffer, if only for James.

Alice would continue to live with the stranger on the cold side of the bed and the tender letters on her bedside table. She would close her eyes and dream of another life, one where James still made promises to marry her and to take her to the moon.


End file.
